


Blossoms and Satin

by SonjaJade



Series: The Rook and the Bluebird [6]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Meeting the Parents, Wedding Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8722243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SonjaJade/pseuds/SonjaJade
Summary: This wasn’t how he pictured their meeting…





	

It had been years since he’d walked these hallowed halls.  Not because he hadn’t thought about doing it, but because he’d been busy with one thing after another since East City.  After the Promised Day, there’d been Ishval, seeing Maria as something more than a friend, their trip to Xing, their engagement…  
  
_“Excuses,”_ he thought to himself bitterly.  _“And you know it.”_  
  
Maria held his hand as he led them through the marble catacombs attached to the back of an old run down chapel.  It was where he’d been anointed in God’s love in the basin of holy water, where he’d taken his first Holy Bread… where he sat and cried when the other children teased him for being a bastard.  Later it was where he sat and cried for the loss of first his grandmother, then his mother.  
  
Both of them had been lain to rest in the tombs built into the stone walls, and as their footsteps clicked in the silent halls, he wondered what made them choose a place like this and not the open air cemetery.  He rounded a corner and slowed their pace, finally stopping before a row that was mostly full.  
                 
“There,” he said, pointing with the bouquet of flowers at a plaque high on the wall that read:  
  


  
_Ida Braeda_  
_March 15 1870-_  
_April 2 1906_  


  
For a moment, they stood gazing at the name together.  Then he pointed to the names above it.  “There’s my grandparents…”  
  


  
_Albert Braeda_  
1850-1873  
_Lydia Hall Braeda_  
_1853-1890_  


  
“So young,” Maria murmured.  
  
“Yeah,” Braeda nodded.  “My grandfather was killed in an accident while helping build the first aluminum plant here, and Granny and Mom developed lung problems from living here in the bad air.”  He grinned at her when she looked at him worriedly.  “Don’t worry, it was worse back when the plants first opened.  By the time I was born, the environmental standards bureau had gotten the air mostly under control.  My last physical said my lungs were in perfect health.”  
                          
He let go of her hand and unwrapped the bunch of flowers, grabbing the sliding ladder and climbing up to put the now divided bouquet into the vases attached to the markers on the wall.  He pressed a kiss to each marble slab and climbed down.  
  
“Mom, Granny… I want you to meet the woman I asked to be my wife.”  His vision blurred and he felt Maria slip her arm around his back as they gazed up at the names together.  “She’s beautiful, smart, and doesn’t let me get away with anything,” he chuckled, trying to keep the mood as light as he could.  “You’d love her, Mom.  She’s no good at cooking, just like you were- but she can out-shoot me and she beats me at canasta every time!”  
  
The tears he’d been holding back began falling.  He prattled on about how he’d been and telling them how he’d asked Maria to marry him (and how she’d told him no at first), about how he got her to change her mind after the trip to Xing, about their life together when she moved in with him.  His face was streaked and swollen, but he smiled through his tears.  He hoped somewhere, wherever their souls were, that they could feel his joy at marrying Maria at the end of the week, and also the pain that they couldn’t be there to see it with him.  
  
And then Maria did something that he didn’t expect in the slightest-  
  
“It’s wonderful to finally meet all of you.  Hey’s told me a lot about his Mom and Granny and I feel as though I know you already.”  
  
He closed his eyes and lost his battle with his emotions.  He cried silently as his bride went on to tell his mother and grandparents more about herself, things like where she grew up, about her family, her canasta strategy…  
  
She turned and hugged him tight, letting him cry on her shoulder.  She patted his back and just held him as she continued, “You worked together in the worst of circumstances to raise a fine man.  I’m happy to become Maria Braeda and give him a family again- with lots of children and all the love his heart can hold.”  
  
“Thank you,” he choked in her ear.  He snorted and wiped at his eyes as he withdrew from her embrace.  “Thank you so much.”  
  
She shushed him, then dug around in her purse for some tissues.  He blew his nose and finally got his eyes to dry up.  After stuffing the tissues in his pocket, he blew kisses up to the rafters and bid his loved ones goodbye.  “We’ll be back again soon,” he said with a smile.  He linked hands with his fiancé again and they strolled out of the mausoleum with lighter hearts than when they’d entered, satisfied that they’d paid their respects and ready to join their lives together.  
  


* * *

  
  
At the wedding (which was a small affair, under a hundred guests), in the front row sat Maria’s family on the bride’s side, and three gilded frames sitting in three chairs, each holding a portrait of Ida, Lydia and Albert on the groom’s side, along with his coworkers from Mustang’s office (with the exception of Havoc, who stood beside him at the altar).  
  
And the mausoleum workers said that the flowers lived for six weeks after the wedding- the same amount of time it took Mr. and Mrs. Braeda to conceive.


End file.
